Metamovies ........

 Too much meta

Even The Exorcist was partly a meta film. Someone walks in asking "What is that those guys with the camera and everyone are doing?"

A: making a movie

Which one?

It could be any movie.

Well this movie came out in 1973. So it couldn't have been ANY movie...

What does it matter? It's just a movie.

What's just a movie?

Ok, let's say they're filming The Godfather...

That doesn't look anything like any scene from The Godfather

There's literally no legitimate resolution to such a conversation. Most movies made at the time of The Exorcist have little to no interest to modern cinema goers. You simply have to accept The Exorcist despite the dumbasfuck decision to have a character in the story who is an actress. She could have been been anyone --- any number of people who operate in the parameters of the REAL world rather than the hyper-circus life known as Hollywood.  

The Exorcist has outlived many films of and even after its day. The film that ushered in the "era of the box office", JAWS, was not half the film that The Exorcist is. 1976s THE OMEN was not half of what The Exorcist is. It'd be 5 years before horror audiences got a halfway decent horror film with INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Modern movie goers in general had to wait a year less with George Lucas' STAR WARS. And I don't care what anyone says, if you can't appreciate the original film as it was structured (minor technical failures can and had been fixed loooooong before DVD and Blu Ray...) then you're an idiot. Unless you're Alec Guiness in which case you're just weird...in a weird way..

So ya, anyway.... There were some actually good movies that came out in the late '60s and early '70s that are void of pompous self serving "everyone wants to be meee!" garbage.

  I think THE GRADUATE was entertaining although the core ideas of the book by Charles Webb were a little less immediate since Dustin Hoffman was kind of dorky and gruff looking. The book was about having everything everybody wants and still not being satisfied. In the movie, Dustin Hoffman comes off as a man who doesn't seem to fit in his shell and is misunderstood by his parents and his parents' friends. But I can't fault the film for being void of style or being boring. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a really good piece of artistry on display. It stylistically told its ' story and seamlessly mixed elaborately extended montages. It is a little long and like anything else if you're not in the mood for it can be either boring or aggravating.

THE GODFATHER was extremely artful in its execution and was extremely entertaining although it fed into people's misconceptions about the Mafia life being this grande thing and gave people this bs notion that there is something honorable about being in a family of thieves and murderers.

Then THE EXORCIST. It would have been virtually perfect except for this one glaring matter that no amount of editing can undo.

So if Christianity isn't offensive and you're like most people, saying to yourself "What's the big deal?", then I'd strongly recommend giving THE EXORCIST a watch. And all of the films mentioned with any shred of good tidings are also worthwhile. But I can see some younger film goers being a little underwhelmed... filmmaking has, technically, evolved a good deal since those days but I do think the quality is still there regardless. The sensibilities of the filmmakers are not so far removed from todays' that it feels like it's hemmed in or constrained. I don't watch a lot of movies from the 40s and 50s because many of them feel very stripped, almost like I'm watching a stage production rather than a motion picture. Which I guess is probably how a lot of people feel watching most movies from before the 1990s. So ...idk.......... I guess it doesn't really matter.. :/